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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 18, 2009)
O REGO N S GAY/LESBIAN/BI/TRANS NEWSMAGAZINE Equally ambitious is David Kittredge’s brutal Pornography: A Thriller. It’s difficult to provide a synopsis of the film, since charac ters and times shift and change with aban don; a character playing a role in one part of the film is liable to reappear as someone else later—or earlier. The film is divided into three sections. In the first, a gay porn star in the 1980s, Marc Anton, gets $40,000 for a private meeting with a client who may have later murdered him. In the second, a writer working on a history of porn moves into Anton’s old apart ment and discovers a tape that shows Anton being killed by a Leatherface-like character. In the third, a contemporary porn star wants to film Anton’s story. It’s advisable to add “Or did he?” to these brief descriptions, since it’s never quite clear what is and isn’t real. As in David Lynch’s films, an evil otherworld of deadly sex and violence is hinted at and sometimes shown, here in creepy video segments and overlap ping identities and locales. Where Pornography falls down is in its certain moralistic vibe about porn, and in hammering its spooky thrills too hard. When Leatherface appears for the fourth or fifth time, sticking a needle in poor Marc Anton’s neck, the effect is more silly than scary. Nonetheless, director Kittredge de serves props for attempting something on this scale and for keeping the action brisk, if not coherent, to the end. Clapham Junction, inspired by the real-life SEPTEMBER 18 ZOOS Ü murder of a young British gay man, trawls some of the same dark waters as Pornography but only shifts characters and locales, not en tire decades. This ensemble drama takes place over a compact 36 hours in London. An early scene depicts a gay wedding, but this happy ceremony is immediately subverted when one of the grooms sneaks off to do coke and have sex with one of the waiters. Throughout the movie, we observe gay life—indeed, life in general—as a series of disguises and tricks. A violent homophobe looks like the boy next door. A respected politician is seen kneeling at a glory hole in a public bathroom. And in a bracing reversal of the norm, a 14-year-old boy vigorously J W courts the pedophile next door. Director Adrian Shergold draws strong performances from the entire cast and nimbly paces the narrative so that the individual sto ries—and there must be a dozen—are always clear. The film deserves credit for an emotional and sexual frankness that includes full-frontal male nudity and a graphic gay bashing. Some viewers have found it ironic that Clapham Junction was made by Britain’s Channel 4 to help mark the 40th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality, citing the picture as homophobic. But there’s obviously more to the film, challenging as it is. The “pedophile” sequence, for example, has a raw intensity and almost poetic power that weakens such complaints. And there’s no question that the portrayal of self-hating queer Terry is a highly negative one, while a character like Robin, a writer, is positive. This is one film that should catalyze passion ate discussion. Another provocative Channel 4 film, Greek Pete, explores the world of rent boys. But this is not the standard “look at this crazy subculture” portrait. Greek Pete, a curious mix of documentary and improvisation by guys in the life, profiles Peter Pittaros, a 24-year-old Greek-Cypriot working in London as an» escort. Pete’s goal is simple: “I just want to make as much money as possible,” a mantra he repeats throughout the film. The boys themselves do most of the talk- MORE ABOUT PLGFF 2009. ON 35 SEAFOOD RESTAURANT & WINE BAR 100 YEARS OLD AND ALWAYS Vino. Pasta. Vino. Repeat. PO RTLAN D $ ORIGINAL W IN 6 JOINT HOW W ITH * lo cations . MiHIfifl Simple Italian Food In the Beaverton Round 503.646.6464 mingowest.com ^ 1708 E. BURNSIDE AVE 501 2IO 9 4 6 4 4225 N. INTERSTATE AVI 501 2 8 0 9 4 6 4 « WINGS « SALADS * * SANDWICHES * * V E G E T A R IA N F A R E LIV E MUSIC & MORE!
